Question
Why is vision essential to facilitating successful change in an organization? What is the correlation between a leader’s role/vision and a successful change initiative? Describe a vision that you have seen/heard/read/viewed that you felt inspired successful change. How did this vision influence people’s behavior and attitudes toward a major change initiative?
Answer
Organizational Vision
It is important for an organization to have a vision that reflects the change. A great change vision is crafted in a way that is easily understood by most people. Visions help to give direction to both the management and the employees on the goals that need to be achieved. Visions help the employees to visualize and articulate the potential future states of the organization (Gulati, Mikhail, Morgan&Sittig, 2016). Therefore, the employees will focus on achieving the change that is needed to move the organization towards the envisioned possible future state.
Leadership plays a great role in the successful implementation of change initiatives in organizations. Successful leaders create visions that they use as a tool of driving a change initiative in an institution (Mayo, 2007). They ensure that all the employees understand their roles in the achievement of change. Leaders thus have a role of transforming a vision from a dream to reality by leading the other people through the implementation stage by implementing their strategic visions. The leaders will articulate to the employees what the organization seeks to attain and the steps that will be followed in order to attain the vision. Therefore, a successful change initiative derives from the strategic ability of leaders to articulate the vision of the company to the employees. Leaders who design the right visions for change attract the commitment of the employees, create meaning in the lives of workers, establish and sustain standards of excellence, and go beyond the status quo (Mayo, 2007).
One of the visions that I have read that I felt inspired a successful change is Honest Tea vision that says “…to create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic, beverages” (Kolowich, 2017) The vision helps to inspire its workers toward not only creating a beverage, but also producing one that has a great taste and is organic. The vision helps the workers to envision production of high class tea that make great-tasting beverages. The vision helps to create a difference the tea produced by the organization and the ones that are produced by other companies.
References
Gulati, R., Mikhail, O., Morgan, R. O., &Sittig, D. F. (2016). Vision Statement Quality and Organizational Performance in US Hospitals. Journal of Healthcare Management, 61(5), 335-350.
Kolowich, L. (2017). 12 Truly Inspiring Company Vision and Mission Statement Examples. Hubspot.Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inspiring-company-mission-statements
Mayo, T. (29 October, 2007). The Importance of Vision. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/10/the-importance-of-vision
